


Moonfire

by foundatlantis



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Airbending & Airbenders, Alternate Universe - Avatar & Benders Setting, Angst, Firebending & Firebenders, M/M, Secret Identity, Some Plot, Todoroki Enji | Endeavor's Bad Parenting, Todoroki Family Drama (My Hero Academia)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:55:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28882044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundatlantis/pseuds/foundatlantis
Summary: Hawks is a young air-bender who finds himself stranded in a snow and ice desert with his dead friend. He thinks he's done for, but a secretive water tribe hunter shows up to offer his help. When there's an unknown fire-bender hiding in the tribe, Hawks must find him before the Avatar arrives to learn water-bending. A wonder, who on Earth may he be...Meanwhile, Shouto and Bakugo are heading North together, and a fire-bender with terrifying scars who goes by Dabi appears  on the horizon.
Relationships: Bakugou Katsuki/Todoroki Shouto, Takami Keigo | Hawks/Todoroki Enji | Endeavor
Comments: 13
Kudos: 31





	1. In The Ice Desert

**Author's Note:**

> Finally started a fic on this ship, not sure about it yet but we'll see how it goes. Inspired by the most amazing fan work to ever exist, the Water Tribe comic by rufftoon  
> Comment if you like it, and if you don't - also comment your criticisms, so I can improve :)

Hawks woke to silver moonlight crawling into his eyes. For a moment of pure bliss, his mind was empty – and then memories exploded like flaming blotches of blinding colour, a violent shudder jolted him into a sitting position. Lumps of snow rolled down his shoulders, ice flakes made him rub his eyes.

The place was unfamiliar – as far as sight could see, clear planes drowning in snow melted into the clear, violet sky. He lay below a ridge of a cliff sinking into the starless night, the lower half of his body cushioned by its shadow - the moonlight had peeked its shy eye from behind one single cloud, and silvered his back.

There was no sign of Ivvi, Hawks noted with concern. He stood on uncertain legs, and wandered around in a circle, but still - no sign of her. Hawks even climbed the small icy cliff hoping to spot her from higher ground.

‘I would have seen her by now, if she were here,’ Hawks cursed out loud. He gathered some burning air in his lungs and screamed **_“IVVI”_** into the night, loud as he could. His voice broke off, and he bend over in a violent coughing fit – wheezing, he collapsed onto his knees.

The heavy warmth of numbness begun leaving his limbs, and he saw he was not dressed for the weather: his yellow linen shirt and orange covering with no sleeves were nothing against the sharp teeth of the snowy night.

Just when he wiped clarity into his clouded eyes with his dry, cold palm, he noticed a hint of reddish tint in the ice cliff.

‘Come to think of it, there aren’t any other ice cliffs around,’ Hawks sniffed, and set to work clearing the thick, heavy snow off the glassy shards. Air-benders weren’t meant for the cold, but he was stranded amidst a white desert and all the time in the world before he froze to death.

In the frail moonlight, the ice shimmered like glass, brilliantly refined and remarkably clear – in the snippet of shards, his Flying Bison’s unseeing eyes shone. Her reddish fur stood up, as if she had frozen in a moment of fright.

‘Ivvi…’ Hawks whispered, laying a hand on the ice, half a meter of it, that separated his trembling palm and the arrow on her head. His purple shadow fell onto it.

Hawks turned to the white desert that melted into the horizon. The moonlight watched as his back slid against the ice, sat uselessly in the snow, aimless eyes wondering the silent, pitch-black sky, and remained there.

***

‘What the fuck…’ a voice muttered, as if concealed by a wall of fur. Hawks thought of Ivvi’s reddish-bronze back, and his eyes flew open at once. With a rush of disappointment, he found that the ice formation was still intact, its prisoner’s lifeless image contained safely within, but another man was here now. His dogless slay, trailed by two messy boroughs in the snow appearing from around the glass, threw a shadow next to him.

‘Hey,’ Hawks croaked, ‘is that yours?’

The giant man turned to face him – no, face is inaccurate, as most of his was covered with a wrapping of thick, brown furs, powdered with white flakes. Only his blue eyes flashed in the thin stripe of space between the furs and a blue strip of linen tugged over the bridge of his nose.

He must not have heard him – there was interest and lazy caution in the way he approached him. The eyes in the clearing narrowed.

Hawks cleared his throat, which felt like swallowing white-hot steel: ‘hello?’

‘You an air-bender?’ the man asked. His voice sounded abrupt and hoarse, as though he’d spent a while in the snow. Hawks threw a glance at his slay – thick, silvery-black shapes were piled heavily onto it. He guessed they were seals, so the man must be a hunter.

‘Yeah,’ Hawks said bleakly. He couldn’t feel his ears or nose, his lips scratched and chapped like old blue paint.

‘Hm,’ a puzzled look appeared in his eyes, but the man made no further comment, ‘need a ride?’

‘I…’ Hawks looked helplessly at Ivvi’s large body, locked in the ice with her pleading, beady eyes.

‘There’s a water tribe village near here,’ the man offered, ‘I’m headed there now. You look like you could use the lift.’

‘Yeah, I bet I do,’ the smile cut into his lips, and he felt the dry skin on his lower lip pop and crack, like a snake’s scale. He wondered in it was too cold for it to bleed.

‘Here,’ the man threw a vaguely worried glance at Ivvi’s pitiful shadow, curling in on itself, and retrieved a simple, grey fur sewn through with bright-blue thread. It felt filled with deadly rocks on Hawks’ shoulders. The man adjusted the fang-like button on the fur cover, and Hawks found strikingly hot air emanating from his hands.

‘Listen, man, thanks a lot, but…’ Hawks hand emerged from beneath the rock-heavy furs and lay onto the ice, ‘I can’t go.’

The man’s blue eyes darted to meet Ivvi’s black ones, hesitantly.

‘What is that thing?’

Hawks grimaced painfully.

‘You’re a _thing_ ,’ he snapped, ‘she’s a Flying Bison. Her name’s Ivvi. And I’m staying here with her.’

‘Doesn’t look like she needs you here,’ the man said. Hawks’ eyes widened, the moonlight blinding him like sunrays on a knife’s edge – the man shrugged, ‘you’re free to stay. There’s just no point. Look at her, she’s long gone.’

‘You’re probably right,’ Hawks’ pale lips barely moved, his hand trembled on the ice in his deep-purple shadow, ‘but what if… she might still be alive in there. And she’ll see me leaving her here…’

‘That’s unlikely,’ the man huffed.

‘Yeah…’ he looked longingly at the moon, ‘listen, you don’t happen to be a water-bender?’

‘No.’

‘Well, shit. I guess I’m staying then.’

The man shook his head, adjusting the furs around his face and the blue fabric in tone with his eyes. He moved tired. ‘No, you’re not.’

‘You said I was free to stay.’

‘I changed my mind,’ the man, who was significantly larger than him, fell to the ground with alarming speed, swept his leg, and threw Hawks’ weak body onto his shoulder, ‘Leaving you here to die doesn’t sit right with me.’

Hawks, though his eyes filled with mist and the horizon tilted, erupted with a jolt of air. He threw the man off balance, the air snapped his heavy hand away, and Hawks flittered back. Drawing a few perfect circles in the air, he landed on top of the cliff.

‘I stay,’ he growled. His knees suddenly fell inward, buckling under the weight of exhaustion and the thick water tribe furs.

The man shook his head, facing away – he raised his hand to his face and made a small motion, as it he pulled the blue linen to cover his hose again, and threw his eyes up.

‘Come down,’ he said.

‘Nope. Not unless you haul this ice apart by hand and prove she’s gone.’

‘How am I—’ he sighed, paused – thought silently a little. His blue eyes twinkled, silvered by the moon, and glowing white from the pristine snow beneath. He scratched the bridge of his nose, shook his head defeatedly, and said: ‘Alright. You win. Get down from there—oh, don’t worry, I won’t go after you. Come down.’

Hawks did, gliding through the air heavily to land at a safe distance.

'You're actually going to take it apart by hand?' he marveled.

'Do you take me for an idiot?' the man rolled his left shoulder as much as the tight animal skins and the fur sprawling from underneath them allowed. 'I'll bend it.'

‘I thought you weren’t a water-bender?’ Hawks called, looking Ivvi in the eyes and scratching his forehead where the arrow peeked from the hairline. A puff of heated air hit him in the face, carried by the wind's cold hands, and he caught an old whiff of burning logs.

The man placed his palm square over Ivvi’s arrow, and his eyes crinkled.

‘I’m not,’ he said, and then dispelled all of Hawks’ doubts in the most terrifying way he could. Silver water trickled from underneath his hand, the ice began sagging, losing shape, rigid, sharp crystals giving way to slouching – Hawks cried out, jumped back in alarm. The ice shards went slack, little flashes of lively, red fire rolling through their edges, igniting their veins and diminishing them to grey vapor.

He'd stepped into hell.

The sickening smell of burning bodies, the sight of the golden stones at the Air Temple’s hanging terrace engulfed in infernal glow, pale stone arches melting from the suffocating heat, archways with blackened remnants of doors and blue flames blazing within them, ashes and embers with orange particles in them still aflame crumbling into the streets – trees, leaves, carved toys… and bones, all reduced to memory.

The ice was gone. The fire-bender straightened, a small orange glow in his previously clear, blue eye – vapor poured all around him, concealing Ivvi within it. Hawks heard her body heavily meet the ground. Livid with the fresh memories, he couldn’t look that way. He couldn’t even move.

He couldn’t take his eyes off the hands that pushed his home into inferno.


	2. The Fire-bender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawks, blinded by rage, attacks his savior...

In a fraction of a second, the air-bender’s wrists came together before him, propelling forward paper-thin, silver slices of air. Enji sidestepped it, light on his feet, but the sharp edge shaved a flock of brown hairs from the fur on his shoulder. He dove under the next gust of wind, driving his heel into the snow that sagged like sand under his weight, and drew a red line along the ground. The flames burst out, touched by blue at their very edges.

Enji rushed to his sledge, but his fire tended to be short-lived these days, so when he reached for the ropes, powerful wind knocked him forward. He turned, in time to catch the glassy-grey blade on course for his face with his right hand. The seam of his sleeve exploded, the thread spilling out, the blue sleeve underneath split in half and a thin, deep cut appeared in his wrist. It was too thin to bleed, but the moment the skin separated – it would. The grey edge sunk in about a centimeter before melting away.

‘Wait!’ Enji called, ‘Why are you fighting me?’

The air-bender muttered something, barely moving his blue lips, and swung again, cutting the air with his palms – the blades were an easy miss, but Enji knew now he wouldn’t let him leave so easily. He noted the boy kept falling back onto one leg after each broad sweep, circling in place, as though on the defensive. Enji tsked, relaxed his shoulders and assumed a water-bending stance with a deep breath.

The boiling, living heat rose in his lungs, gathered in thread-thin lines of molten fire along his hands and prickled golden needles, fresh off the forge, at his fingertips. The only way to overpower the distraught air-bender without injury… He took another deep inhale, and released from his fingertips, to the last molten, white-hot drop, all his fire, and bent it like water.

The boy startled, flinched, anger disfigured his pale face and his hands, joined again at the wrists, shot forward a powerful blast, which was still not enough to extinguish this kind of flame, mined in the deepest corner of his lungs. The fire was soft and malleable, pouring like water – Enji moved his wrists in a gentle circle, and the fire formed a tight ring around the boy.

‘What did you do?’ the boy screamed, thrashing about in the melting snow, ‘This isn’t fire-bending at all!’

‘Not all fire-bending is the same,’ Enji proclaimed, aware of the hot blood soaking up his right sleeve. He relaxed that hand, adjusted the blue covering his face with the left, and added, ‘It won’t touch you if you don’t move. Look, if you just stop trying to kill me, I’ll take you to the village.’

The air-bender’s chest heaved: he was coming back to his right mind, losing the rage-crazed glint in his eyes. He must have been in his early twenties, but now, in the steady silver of the moon and the velvety darkness, as the animosity dissipated, he became a little younger. And very tired.

‘And if not?’

‘I guess I’ll have to send someone else to help you once I get home.’

‘Home!’ the air-bender scoffed, a small gust of his wind ruffled a strand fallen on his face, ‘Right. I didn’t know the Fire Nation colonized the Poles as well.’

‘They didn’t,’ said Enji, ‘and I’m not part of the Nation anymore, clearly. I left.’

‘Really... why? Slaughtering my people too much for you? Saw the bloodshed firsthand and had a change of heart?’

Enji measured the boy with a questioning look. _What a nonsensical thing to say…_ It occurred to him to think how this air-bender ever survived. He’d heard the Avatar returned, emerged with his flying beast from a glowing ice sphere, so he wouldn’t be mad to think this one, too, could have. He looked at the mammoth, motionless shadow resting in the snow, foggy vapor still clinging to it.

‘I’m not that old,’ he said, as a test.

‘What?’

‘…when do you think it happened?’

‘Don’t mess with me, asshole,’ the boy hissed, ‘you should know. I bet you all celebrated it, too.’

‘Kid... It’s been a hundred years.’ He said it with expression, so it wouldn’t be mistaken for a joke. The air-bender’s irked, unpanicked expression told him he failed.

‘…you’re not funny. Leave it to a fire-bender to make a joke out of a massacre.’

‘It’s the truth-’ Enji spread his arms helplessly, ‘I gain nothing lying.’

‘Okay, listen, I don’t know what game you’re playing, but I’m not going along with it. Kill me if you’re going to.’

‘I’m not,’ Enji said, testily, ‘I will even release you, if you are done trying to fight.’

‘Oh, no,’ the boy grinned darkly, squinting, sharp pupils narrowed in his yellow iris, ‘fair warning: as soon as the fire is down, I’ll attack. So, kill me, or fight me.’

‘I fought you just now, and won. Fight’s over. Besides, it’ll take a while before you can hold your own against me.’

‘I was caught off guard! That wasn’t proper fire-bending.’

‘Worked, didn’t it? Like I said,’ a small, cooling stream of blood ran down his fingers and dripped onto the snow, crimsoning it, ‘not all fire-bending is the same. Goes for any element, actually. You’ll have to learn that before you win a fight.’

‘I’ve won plenty of fights.’

‘Against other children, maybe,’ Enji scoffed, ‘I’ve never fought an air-bender, but even I can tell you’re rubbish.’

‘I am not a child, I’m a master,’ he shrieked, aggressively tapping the light-blue triangular inking on his forehead, ‘let me out and I’ll show you!’

‘No, no more fighting,’ Enji snapped, feeling the sting in his arm, the wet cold on his arm, as if he’d gone elbow-deep into freezing water, ‘decide now: go with me calmly, or stay and wait for someone else.’

The air-bender grit his teeth, darting eyes to the wooden sledge, then briefly – to follow a drop of blood tearing off the tip of his thumb to the red stain in the snow. A look of wounded pride and dulling, but still lively, anger appeared on his face, and in thought he scratched his stubble (which looked more like golden peach fuzz).

‘I’ll stay,’ he muttered, to Enji’s dismay.

‘Your wish,’ he untied the lace on a leather bag in the back on the sledge, fishing out a roll of grey bandage and cotton wool from among the army of little glass flasks. The boy’s sharp eyes trailed his hands with begrudging interest as they moved: a red fire lit at one finger tip, Enji grit his teeth and began searing the wound closed. The skin had fallen apart to form a wide gash with frighteningly clear edges. Once the bleeding line was replaced with a burned borough, he put cotton on it and put wraps over.

‘Why don’t you show your face?’ he looked up to meet the boy’s eyes – apple-golden, so strikingly bright, ‘Are you a coward or just ugly?’

Enji shook his head, and wordlessly packed away the kit.

Suddenly, there was movement behind him – a gigantic shadow fell on him, and he barely slipped out of it when a deafening crash descended onto the ground, and waves of snow and splinters from his sledge rose into the air. He cursed, igniting his fist, and in the orange glow it created the infernal monster before him became visible.

The bison – he assumed – towered above the wreckage of the sledge two meters, its tail moving away from the indent in the snow it had created. The light did not reach the face but for two dancing red glints in its eyes.

The air-bender let out a war cry of triumph, but stayed put, wary of the molten fire ring still swirling around him. Its flickers illuminated his brilliant smile.

Enji let out a string of curses again. He saw the bison’s legs begin shuffling, its tail rising beyond the light of his flames, and made the tactical decision to retreat immediately. With a wide swipe of his left arm, he raised a wall of wild blue fire from the very ground and many meters high, turned on his heels and ran. The beast wouldn’t leave its owner, so he only had to get far enough.

Behind him, the roar of a flying bison shook the air.

***

‘Well done, Ivvi!’ Hawks cried as the streaming ring of fire dissipated around him, falling away into blood-red embers and settling in colorless ash in the puddle of molten snow. Steam rose around him.

Ivvi, whose massive shape could barely be made out in the pale moonlight, pounced at him, and pushed her cold, wet face into his chest. Hawks laughed, hugging her – her fur was slippery and bristled.

‘I’m so glad you’re alive,’ he was whispering, when they separated, ‘I don’t know what I would have done if you’d gone.’

Ivvi whimpered and licked him.

‘Yeah, you’re right, time to stop sulking!’ he chuckled, wiping his cheek. He considered giving the fire-bender, who had turned into a pale flicker of fire in the dark distance, chase. A light, icy wind dove around him. All of a sudden, the acute cold returned, his skin stiffened. He raised the back of his hand to examine it – blue tints and redness settled in his knuckles, and the skin went white and dead in places, weathered by the frosty wind. He slid his hand under the fur again with a sigh.

‘As much as I’d love to get him, I think we should find that village he mentioned. He might have lied, but one thing that is probably true is the Poles couldn’t have been taken over. There must be water-benders still around. Maybe some of other Nomads even escaped here, like us, huh?’ he smiled dreamily, lifting himself onto the basket on Ivvi’s back.

‘Alright, Ivvi,’ Hawks took the reins, which were made of matted rope against slipping, in a familiar motion and clapped her head gently, ‘yip-yip!’

With Ivvi’s soft grumble and Hawks bright laughter, they rose into the air, melted into the clouds and were welcomed by the starless, moon-filled night.


	3. Two Scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bickering duo is making their was to the Northern Air Temple...

‘You don’t even know where you’re going, do you?’

Sweet thrills of grey, high-mountain birds met the morning sunrays. Bottle-green light fell through the scarce leaves of the tree they stopped under – its roots dug into the rock on the mountainside.

‘For the last time, we are not lost! If you just give me a second-’

‘You idiot got us stranded in this stupid place! I’ll burn you to a crisp.’

‘I’d like to see you try,’ he rubbed the bridge of his nose, bringing the snipped of flame dancing on his fingertip closer to the crinkled map, made yellow and worn by years of use, ‘here – this is the ridge right there. We just passed it, so if we follow this path, it should take us right to the Northern Air Temple.’

‘And are you gonna swim across the ocean? What will you tell the Water Tribe? You think they’ll fucking love to see you, don’t you?’

‘Okay, I get it, just stop shouting!’ Shouto folded the map, tucked it into his leather bag and stretched, ‘I’ll figure out a way to cross the ocean once we get there. And I won’t announce myself to the Tribe- I’m not an idiot. The blue eyes will help. You, on the other hand, couldn’t scream ‘fire-bender’ any louder.’

Bakugo scoffed, kicking a small brown stone down the narrow ravine that cut into the mountain. He was a tall young man with blonde hair and fire-bender eyes, in a red tunic with gilded lining, a brown, ornamented headband that covered his forehead and two similar ones over his palms, and stolen water-tribe boots.

‘It’s not fire-bending, genius,’ said the perpetually-angry boy, eyeing his companion skeptically, ‘And I don’t care, I won’t go in _with you._ ’

‘Why on earth not?’

‘Because he isn’t there! He can’t be there, and you know it. I’ll wait outside the city for the Avatar.’

‘I still think your plan is faulty, and you’ll get killed on sight,’ Shouto shrugged, leading them down a dust road that melted away into the mountains and presumably lead to the Northern Air Temple.

‘At least I have a plan,’ Bakugo grumbled, ‘What’s yours?’

‘Well, to be honest, I don’t have anything so specific in mind,’ confessed Shouto, ‘It’s just another place to look. I’ll move on if he’s not there – he’s bound to be somewhere.’

‘Or he could be long dead, and you’re pissing away your life,’ Bakugo suggested, diving under a rocky arc. Shouto tested the ground with his heel, then slid down the steep mountainside, raising plumes of yellow dust and sharp bits of stone. Bakugo followed.

‘He’s alive. I’m sure of it,’ Shouto said grimly, ‘He wouldn’t die just from anything.’

‘Maybe disease got him. Or maybe he ran into one of the other nation’s soldiers and they executed him- or maybe he was executed by our soldiers.’

‘They don’t execute deserters on the spot, do they?’

‘Dunno.’ Bakugo frowned, ‘You know, I think he’s pretty old, isn’t he? Could’ve just kicked the bucket.’

‘He should be about forty-five now,’ Shouto said, after a moment of thinking, ‘Not that old.’

‘Seems pretty old to me.’

‘Isn’t the Fire Lord even older than that?’

‘Yeah, but he’s _the Fire Lord_ ,’ Bakugo proclaimed, as though that meant anything.

‘He’s human, Baku, just as human as us,’ Shouto shook his head, looking ahead. The boys found themselves at the edge of a cliff, overlooking countless ridges, their greening, juicy mountainsides and shade-filled valleys. The sun had risen over the spiky horizon, and the heavy clouds gathered over Shouto’s head – an orange glow flickered up them, illuminating the disfigured side of his face, crowning him in gold.

‘So, where the fuck from here? Do we jump down the cliff?’

‘Yeah, you can even go first.’ Shouto bristled, scratching the edge of his warm scar. His lips formed an old motto Touya taught him once, taught to him by their father. The red sunlight split his face in half, and the heat tickling the left eye resurrected images before his eyes: steam, silver moonlight on the brass kettle, lines of water slinking through the air, boiling as they went; shadows under mother’s eyes, puss-soaked bandages… and, much fresher ones: a pit, a towering shadow with one blue eye wide open, the heat of a blast still on his fingertips as its fire tore through _his_ left eye, branding them equal… no, branding _him_ the loser.

Eye for an eye.

‘Fucking wake up!’ Bakugo screamed, startling him to reality, ‘I’m talking to you! Have you gone deaf as well as stupid? Muttering weird shit about eyes?’

‘I was thinking,’ Shouto snapped. He threw a quick look down the mountainside, pointed to a pale, barely visible path rolling and coiling down, ‘there. I will take that. _You_ can take the cliff.’

‘I’ll make you _take the cliff_ if you want, will get you down much quicker.’

‘I’m in no hurry,’ Shouto grinned, ‘He’ll always be waiting for me. You, though, you might miss your date with the Avatar.’

‘Will you _shut up!_ ’

***

‘Here you go,’ the smiling old lady fastened the last strip of white fur lining around his collar, pulling away, ‘all new.’

‘The old ones,’ Enji muttered, lowered the brown, heavy furs and the worn blue scarf into her hands. He was leaning against an ice wall of a hut, the uneven brickwork against his back, purpled and whitened furs warming the floor. The purple sunrise spilled its golden blood onto the fair side of his face, ‘The other ones are torn, but if you want them as well…?’

‘Oh, hand them over,’ she laughed, ‘We can always patch them up. What I want to know is what beast got you like that!’

‘Just a bear,’ Enji lied through gritted teeth, ‘caught me by surprise. It attacked my as I helped it out of a trap.’

‘I knew you were a big softy,’ the old lady chuckled softly – Enji scoffed and looked away, taking an interest in the ornamented tapestries on the walls. They were woven of thin matted wool, with all suits of various patterns: yellow mosaic fields of wheat, square labyrinths of blue lines and golden highlights, brown swirls… one, though, looked to Enji starkly out of place. It was a half-by-half square, thinner than normal, the initial pattern of inter-woven ornaments stitched over with an image of an eye. It was all blood-red.

‘What is that one meant to be?’ he asked hesitantly, pointing.

‘Oh, that one?’ she laughed again. Enji squinted testily, ‘how strange of you to ask about it. It’s a peculiar little thing, really. A traveler once went through here and left it. No one wants to buy it, but I keep it on the wall anyway – I like the brightness.’

‘I see,’ Enji ran his fingers over the ornament, thinking, _how interesting for it to end up here… for me to even find it…_ ‘How much for it?’

The old lady gave him a strange look, breaking away from folding and piling the cut-up sleeve into a woven basket, then she was smiling – hot steam tickled at Enji’s nostrils, ‘So little I think I’ll give it for free. On the house.’

‘You’re sure?’ Enji eyed the tapestry.

‘Of course, of course – since you’ve been so sweet!’

‘I have never been that in my life,’ he muttered, taking the square of worn fabric off the wall (the lady immediately hurried to cover the naked ice wall it revealed), folding it and tucking it in his new pouch. The grim, brown furs gave way to a blue tunic and a thick blue vest, lined inside with rich white fur, falling to his knees and tied around the waist with a grey scarf. His sleeveless overcoat and its hood were hooked over his elbow.

Enji paid and thanked the old lady, who smiled relentlessly at him, and left her ice hut to wander the village.

He took a large detour to avoid the air-bender, walked for a whole day to a further splinter of the Northern Water Tribe, tucked away in the mountains that ringed the fortress. He hoped the boy found a town – he just hoped it wasn’t this one. Let the freshness of the memory subside a little, he thought, so he forgets the timbre of my voice and the words I said. If he were to encounter the air-bender again, he would not be recognized.

He would wait a few weeks before returning to the city, where he was sure to find the new novelty, another miraculously appeared air-bender… for now, this village looked like it could use a spare man.


	4. The Last Air-Bender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawks has a crisis, arrives to the capital and meets someone new

The village was golden with the sunlight, ice blocks turned into the yellow stone of his Air Temple, hanging archways of delicate ice – into the intertwined living roof of a shaded walkway at home… home, that had a century since crumbled to ash and poured through Hawks’ fingers like water. If only he were a water-bender, he thought absently watching them, packed into thick furs and carrying bear tooth harpoons, he could bend the ash-turned-water back into shape… but no bender, even the Avatar, could resurrect a corpse from the sands of time.

A little earlier, he reached the village, found a shopkeeper (in an ice hut covered in red and brown animal skins that made his own crawl) who very hesitantly and testily explained to him that air-benders hadn’t been seen for a hundred years, that the only living one was the Avatar, recently emerged, and that, in a word, Hawks had evaded a century of bloody history and war as he slept time away in his ice prison…

This trail of unpleasant revelations led Hawks where he found himself now, from within the milky daze of his own mind, sitting on a high ice bridge over a shallow canal locked under a thin veneer of ice, and contemplating slipping off the edge, back into the loving, forgetful embrace of timeless winter.

And the fire-bender hadn’t even lied.

And the fire-bender… on second thought, why was the fire-bender in the North Pole?

The world, as easily explained to him by the skin-merchant, was at war with itself all around, within each nation and outside it, but the nightmare shadow on the horizon hadn’t changed a bit in the last hundred years – the fire-nation sought to “take over the world”.

So, what, say, was a fire-bender doing in enemy territory, in wartime, if not spying on the honest people of the Water Nation? And who was Hawks, a lost relic of a long-gone art and an extinct people, if not a savior sent by the spirits to… to…

Coming down from his shock-induced high, Hawks was, in actuality, completely directionless. He spent the night warming under Ivvi’s tail, thinking about this. Where should he go? Back to the Air Temple, or should he wait for the Avatar and offer him help? Should he pursue the fire-bender spy hiding in the Tribe? Should he, should he, should he…

Hawks’ head swam. Little by little, like dust in murky water, it settled in that he was completely alone, but for a ten-year-old boy called Aang, who may not even be alive anymore, may be long incinerated by red, unforgiving flames, or blue ones.

But if the Avatar was alive, he was the world’s only hope at cutting out the hot, burning tumor that grew on the world day by day, sneaking even into the North Pole. The first night, a hundred years after he lost everything, Hawks decided two things.

First, he would do everything in his power to help the Avatar. He would wait in the North until they had a chance to reunite, two remaining ghosts.

Second, while he waited, he would cut out with the root the poisonous disease that wormed its way into the Northern Tribe’s heart. He would find the fire-bender, and this time it would go very differently. He would keep his cool. And… whatever exotic bending he used, that strange fusion of water style with fire that threw him off in their first fight, he would be ready for it.

Fire that acted like water, huh? Hawks couldn’t help but be curious of how other styles could blend together: water and air, air and fire. If he air-bent using other styles, would he become stronger or weaker for it? Maybe it was the natural versatility of fire that allowed water movements to work, but what was more versatile than air? Fire couldn’t compete. Though everyone knew water as the most flexible, Hawks wondered if every element, with enough mastery, could be made to move like any other.

He fell asleep that night to these thoughts, excited currents of air pouring through his hair.

***

The following weeks carried Hawks away in a freezing whirlpool of ice, snow, fur, animal skins, blue scarves flashing at him the crowd, blue eyes always watching like ghosts over his shoulder, blue moonlight at night. He worked his arrow off for fifteen days to earn some money, get some warmer clothes, become accustomed to the state of the world and the Water Tribe a little, and set out for the Northern capital, the great glittering ice fortress, where the elders of the Tribe resided.

When he reached it, the fortress greeted him with half-living morning silence and curious glances at Ivvi’s towering shadow. Of course, rumors travelled like the wind, carried by the merchants and hunters… Hawks paid special attention to those. Among the careless, lazy men in furs, skins, slays and with sharp harpoons on their backs, the poisonous tumor hid his blue eyes and deadly flames.

Why were his eyes even blue? - the Fire Nation had golden-orange eyes. Was he that good at integrating and deception? Was it an illusion? Could he even change his appearance, like a monster from some airy, moss-covered legend?

Hawks startled.

In the crowd before him flashed and disappeared a familiar broad back in blue wool lined with white fur. Him? Hawks’ heart hammered, he glided down street, raising puffs of air and powdery snow under his heels, looked frantically around: too short, too lean, eyes too green, this one’s a woman – there!

He dived nose first into the crowd and caught a glimpse of the illusive shadow melting into the archway entrance of a blacksmith. Smoke and heat poured from between the black curtains covering the escaping man. Hawks entered.

The narrow room that appeared to him had an open back, overlooking an empty street, and several large windows cut into the stone walls. A fireplace blazed with a new, orange glow in the far corner, two blocks of ice held forge, a bundle of long metal tools, and a soot-covered, steely anvil. There were necklaces of smaller tools on the walls, and a large black chain holding buckets and strange-shaped things whose purpose was unknown to Hawks.

The man just finished lighting the fire, tuned to Hawks and asked him whether he was here to collect an order of make one. He had the same blue eyes everyone here had, black hair that looked unnatural on him, and a massive scar disfiguring the left side of his pale face.

Hawks couldn’t tell if his hoarse voice belonged to the fire-bender, as his speech was obstructed by furs, a scarf, the wind and his fuzzing two-week-old memory.

‘Neither, really,’ Hawks told the man. ‘Just here to look around. I’ve never seen a blacksmith before, only read about them.’

‘Hm. You the air-bender, then?’

‘How could you tell? Seen me before?’

‘No, just,’ the man tapped his forehead just below the reddish hairline.

‘Right,’ Hawks said, disappointed, ‘and I guess I’m the talk of the town, huh?’

‘Yes. You created quite a stir.’

‘Yeah, I’m like that,’ Hawks smiled, offered his hand, ‘I’m Hawks.’

The man’s dark-brown leather glove was rough and _warm,_ but it didn’t mean anything – it was warm in the room.

‘Enji,’ he eyed Hawks curiously, ‘so where did you come from?’

‘Northern Air Temple. Oh, _oh_ , you mean… honestly, I don’t know myself. I just woke up in the snow a hundred years after I fell asleep.’

‘Hm. Like the Avatar.’

‘Like the Avatar,’ Hawks scratched his chin, ‘well, I guess I’ll get going.’

‘Not getting anything?’

‘Nope, and I wouldn’t know what to get. I don’t really need anything. It’s the Air Nomad philosophy, you see.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Just the usual nomad stuff,’ Hawks made a vague gesture in the air, ‘detach yourself from earthly possessions, share all that you have with others, and you will find true freedom. Some say one guy even learned to fly.’

‘Hm,’ Enji peeled his gloves off, ‘well, I could recommend something. Maybe a weapon. I heard you plan to fight the Fire Nation.’

‘Wow, they even got that around,’ Hawks muttered, ‘Well, technically, that is somewhat against the oath of non-aggression.’

‘You have that?’

‘Yeah. All air-benders swear one when they learn bending at the Temples. Only use it for self-defense. This is one of our ways.’

These words had a strange effect on Enji – for a moment, he looked almost guilty, melted into regret, which turned into a barely noticeable sadness before disappearing. He muttered, ‘You really were a peaceful nation…’ then, louder: ‘It _is_ self-defense if the Fire Nation attacked first. Which they did.’

‘I guess you’re right,’ Hawks admitted, ‘And I would need a weapon to defend myself…’

Enji brightened a little, and helped him pick, for the next half an hour, a weapon that he would comfortably use. No strange events occurred afterwards, Enji wrote down the order, told Hawks to return in three days’ time, and they parted ways.

Hawks had a lingering suspicion about the blacksmith, nagging at the back of his mind: why did he react like that? Why were his hands _that_ warm? Why did his black hair look out of place?...

He looked forward to returning in three days.


	5. Beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why Bakugo looks for the Avatar and why Shouto's quirk is strange

‘Why are you looking for the Avatar?’

The time is night, the place: a rocky ravine drowning in velvet shadow and purple moonlight, silvering Shouto’s thin profile in the darkness. They set up camp before the sun sunk into the spiky horizon, but neither could fall asleep. Bakugo was staring at the sky, streaked with faint pink and orange remnants of the sunset.

‘Why do you care?’ he snapped, ‘I’m trying to sleep here.’

‘We both know you can’t, so why not pass the time?’ Shouto’s silvery-purple profile smiles, Bakugo feels hot vapor streaming from his nostrils, ‘Come on, Baku.’

‘Don’t call me that!’

‘Alright, alright - _Bakugo_. This whole month you haven’t told me a thing about youself,’ oh, what he wouldn’t give to let that continue, ‘I’ll tell you about myself after, if you want.’

‘Why would I? I don’t wanna know your lousy backstory.’

‘Well, I could tell you about my quirk,’ Shouto offered, slyly – Bakugo narrowed his eyes like a snake. Shouto was not so much an interesting character as he was peculiar: his hair was pristinely-white, but once, a week ago, a morning rain put some redness into it; both his eyes were grey, but in a certain light, on an airy evening his left could be green, or blue on a bright day. And something irked Bakugo endlessly about the rigid flow of Shouto’s flames.

‘Alright,’ he gave in, ‘you want to know why I’m looking for the Avatar?’

Shouto’s outline nodded.

‘I want to join him.’

For a long moment, the sleepless shadow remained silent – Bakugo saw the purple moon highlight his eyes – and there! – again, it had a speck of blue-or-green in it.

‘You better not try to stop me!’ he bristled.

‘I won’t… but… why? I never took you for that kind of guy.’

‘Oh, you took me for a blood-loving massacre-headed kind of guy? Only you’re so cool all the time. Me… I admire the Fire Lord, but what he’s doing is really starting to piss me off.’

‘Huh.’

‘So there! Your turn now. What’s the deal with your freaky quirk?’

‘Well, it’s a bit more complicated than your story,’ Shouto was suddenly hesitant.

‘Shoot, I got all night,’ he wouldn’t let him back out now, his interest was captured.

After a small pause, his monotone narrator began speaking:

‘It starts a while back, with a Fire Nation soldier and a slave captured at the North Pole, and their child. An unusual mix, but he was normal, as far as outward signs go – tall, strong, and the most talented fire-bender… until the princess came to be. Only his eyes were blue, but that didn’t bother anyone, as far as I know. Unsurprisingly, he “rose through the ranks”, as they say – but wanted higher, better and more… - and in his pursuit of the highest possible rank, he had an idea. He found a Fire Nation citizen with strong Water Tribe roots, somehow got her to agree – well… anyway - to marry him.’

‘That’s your shitty dad?’

Shouto nodded.

‘So?’

‘So, I was one of their kids. As I grew, I felt my fire, as my appearance, was different… at five, I discovered I could not only bend fire, but ice as well.’

Bakugo’s eyes popped out of their sockets.

‘You what?’

‘Yeah. Apparently, that was all my father ever planned.’

‘But… then why have you never water-bent? So many times, I had to—’

‘I can’t water-bend,’ Shouto said testily, ‘It’s… strange. I only bend ice. Say, there’s a block of ice – I can bend that, but I can’t turn water into ice, or bend water. Ice has to already be there.’

‘That sucks!’ Bakugo declared, crossing his arms. Where could that even be applied? There’s not a place in the world that contains so much ice, not unless… ‘Unless you fight in the North Pole.’

‘Exactly. It’s the best grounds to fight without using his cursed fire. I’ve never really used it much before, I’ll spend all the time it takes to find him to train it, once we get there. So that when it’s done, it has to be done on my own terms.’

Bakugo glanced at his rigid silhouette lit by the moon, not purple anymore but clear and silver. Shouto… he was possessed. The red glint in his eyes, the baring of teeth, the tense muscles in his shoulders, the streams of vapor and licks of flame along his scar, the smell of burning hair. The terrifying transformation that occurred at times made Bakugo shiver.

‘I still think you can’t do it,’ he confessed, ‘He’s too strong. You’re wasting your stupid life.’

‘I know, but I am ready to die in that battle if he does too,’ Shouto sighed, ‘We’re all a little twisted, in my family. His courtesy. My eldest brother burned himself to death, the others ran, left me alone, _he_ made my mother lose it, _he’s_ the root of it all… no heart, no sympathy, gets off on suffering and has the power to cause it. But he didn’t make me this way **… I** made **me** this way. It’s an illness beyond any cure, Bakugo, but it’s one I chose for myself.’

All the anger in Bakugo extinguished like a candleflame… this was not worth the anger. Pity… a disgusting, disgraceful worm in a weak heart, but he couldn’t help but feel the clearest pity – Shouto’s blue shadow was a grotesque little creature, cowering from the blessing light of the moon, turning its back to it… maybe he wasn’t pitiful. Maybe this was just sad.

‘It’ll kill you before it does him. Or immediately after.’

‘That’s alright. I don’t have anything else anyway.’

‘Since you have such an amazing power, use it, you freak. Join the Avatar, team up with a water-bender who will make you ice. All the gates your talent opens…’

‘I don’t care for any of them,’ Shouto threw himself back, the thin light on his arms rose and glimmered, he folded them under his head. Looked at the endless sky – the moonlight illuminated his face, Bakugo saw him. He was smiling… smiling like a madman on the verge of death, like a fire-bender drowning in his own blue flames, like an idiot, who doesn’t know the value of what he bargains with.

‘Stupid,’ Bakugo laughed into the silence, lay back down, and stared into the abyss until it felt like he was one with it.


	6. Endeavor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawks meets the Elders

Three days swam by like three weeks, left Hawks reeling and exhausted.

The first thing that happened was his meeting with the Elders of the Tribe, a group of elderly men in expensive blue wool and pristinely-white furs - he assumed they belonged to old hunting wolves that weren’t strong enough to carry heavy wooden sledges anymore. Their loyal servitude’s reward saddened the Nomad… the way of the monks was clearly lost in time’s murky waters.

‘Elders,’ Hawks folded his fists in traditional formal greeting (the servants lining the walls exchanged a meaningful look). Their ice-block parapet towered over him; the pale sun made his shadow fall directly in the middle of it.

‘So, the rumors were true,’ the right-most man said hoarsely, ‘another Air Nomad survived.’

‘My name is Hawks. It’s an honor.’ – it wasn’t. The monks had no Elders, no shadow over their head to bow to, only those they turned to lead by the purest respect… the men here looked like they were made out of ancient wood and sand, and about to crumble to dust any minute. _No one commands you, young air-bender,_ remembered Hawks the words of his master, clear as though spoken into his ear now, _the old can never command the power of youth._

The sole exception was the balding man in a thin woolen shirt, who had the hands of a bender and the eyes that kept a flowery secret. It was this man who asked:

‘Say, Hawks, how did you survive the Fire Nation attacks?’ The old skeleton on the bender’s right threw him a look. ‘What? We though it was just the Avatar, but if maybe it’s many more.’

‘Sorry,’ Hawks said sincerely, ‘I’m afraid it’s just me. I escaped the attack on the Northern Temple… I don’t remember how. Assuming I just took my bison... but even then, the bison were the first they burned. I don’t even know how I got out, never mind another person. It’s practically impossible.’

‘Hardly,’ the bender insisted, ‘You seem pretty sure, though. I wonder why that is…’

‘Honored elder,’ Hawks said, in a steady voice (tension settled above the bridge of his nose and his tone grew frosty), ‘are you implying something?’

‘Not at all, not at all,’ the bender waved his hand dismissively, but remained dangerous and speaking, ‘only wondering. Would it really be so strange for others to have gotten away in the same way you did?’

‘Yes, but you’re welcome to search the ice desert if you wish. I have other concerns now,’ in the back of his mind, however, doubt crept in. His memory was a pool of opaque water, its black deep swallowing the lights he threw in every time he tried to remember… how _did_ he get away? Why did he forget? There was a rock-solid, monolith confidence in his heart that no one else lived, but the bender was right, and there was no reason that obeyed logic suggesting it.

‘And what would those be?’

The skeletal Elder leaned over to the bender’s ear and began whispering heatedly – he was brushed off.

‘When I was in the ice desert, I encountered a fire-bender,’ with satisfaction, he watched the man’s eyes widen, ‘I suspect he is a spy amongst you. I intend to discover him.’

‘Why?’ the bender asked immediately.

‘Because the Fire Nation is a poisonous tumor, and I will do all I can to prevent it from consuming more of the peaceful lands,’ Hawks snapped, ‘And what’s with the interrogation?’

‘Ignore him,’ a man with heavy eyebrows and a fat neck smiled, ‘Pakku is known for his paranoia.’

‘I am **not** ,’ Pakku the water-bender grumbled, ‘I exhibit a healthy amount of caution, unlike everyone who surrounds me.’

‘You call it healthy…’

Pakku groaned, ‘I am not alone in this! Where is Aizawa when you need him?’

‘He slept in today,’ eyebrows shrugged, ‘And then his son’s just discovered bending, so…’

‘At least he’s not pitching that creep as my student anymore.’ Pakku said, rubbing his balding temple uneasily – Hawks remembered the name, Aizawa, for future interest, and relinquished his polite silence.

‘Uh, Elders…’ Pakku gave him a withering red glance, eyebrows scratched his nose ashamedly, ‘I won’t take much more of your time. Just… if you have anything on the fire-bender, please tell me.’

‘The guards could handle the matter, you know,’ Pakku muttered, for which was shoved with a skeletal elbow. The dry, tanned man with trembling fingers, wrinkled skin and striking, hay-blonde hair right of Pakku cleared his throat.

‘The guards cannot, the man has committed no crime yet,’ his ignorant words irked Hawks, who widened his eyes wildly, grimacing absolutely unnecessarily, but kept silent, ‘Yes, young Hawks, he cannot be wanted if there is no crime to be wanted for. And, as a matter of fact, you aren’t the first one to “encounter” this fire-bender. Report have been coming in for a few years, and one thing has remained throughout: he helps people.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘What I said. It’s all over the place, big things and little, all pretty spontaneous. There was a commotion the first time, but everyone’s calmed. The children even gave him a nick-name – oh, what was it? Starts with an E, I think… uh…’

‘It’s Endeavor, you old log,’ Pakku supplied rudely.

‘Exactly, thank you!’ the skeleton snapped his fingers, ‘That’s the one. If you try to find him, we won’t stop you – technically, we are at war with all fire-benders. That’s all I got, though.’

‘It’s a great help,’ Hawks smiled frankly, ‘Thanks…’

‘Yagi.’

‘Good to know and nice to meet you. And thank you all for having me and letting me stay,’ his arms began forming the formal gesture again, but he figured it must be out-of-date from the silvery giggle of the servants. Instead, he nodded slightly to each Elder.

Pakku averted his eyes and muttered, to which he received pointed looks from Yagi and eyebrows, that _he had his eyes of this suspicious brat_ , _his story didn’t add up like he’d like it to,_ and, in a word, Hawks better be squeaky-clean and rule-abiding to the smallest detail. Hawks played deaf.

Apparently, he made a mistake turning his back to them, too – one servant girl gasped – but what did he care? Nothing. Pakku could swallow his paranoia whole and choke on it before Hawks showed him respect… though, after some thought, he decided Yagi was a pleasant man, if a little naïve.

Heading down the street, gliding, light on his feet, between the stalls curtained with wool, furs and skins, the wooden chests covered with the fuzz of fresh snow, the ice-breaking tools, the massive, polished wooden sledges with ornaments… Hawks was troubled. Pakku’s words left a crater in his murky pool of memory, and it was slowly filled with the cold water of doubt again. So many days were smudged like undried ink, caked and old, unintelligible. All he could recall were feelings, vague shapes of smells, and a sudden old image that reached his eyes – a flickering candle, scented soot and iron, its wax pooling at its foot, a dark room, a red table, his, Hawks’, fingers, intertwined with anothers, in a red sleeve with a golden lining… Fire Nation?

Gasping, Hawks broke the surface of the black pool in his mind… his memory carried his in like a powerful maelstrom. If he looks in more, he will drown.

Absently, he continued his way down the street, past the blacksmith’s large window. If his suspicion was correct, and Enji really was this Endeavor figure… well, he shouldn’t jump to conclusions. He’ll see for sure soon enough.


End file.
